International Law

State Dept fires two for snooping into Obama's passport records

By David T.S. Fraser

For the record, I do not delight in the misfortunes of others but I am glad to see that the US Department of State has fired two people for inappropriately snooping into the passport records of Barak Obama. Access to sensitive records must be adequately policed in order for people to be able to trust the systems that keep the info safe. It appears that the State Dept. has a pretty good system and is willing to mete out punishment for policy violations.

Monitoring systems are tripped when an employee accesses the records of the high-profile individual, a department official told NBC News. "When the monitoring system is tripped, we immediately seek an explanation for the records access. If the explanation is not satisfactory, the supervisor is notified."

See: 2 fired over Obama passport breach - Decision '08- msnbc.com. Via the equally vigilant Boing Boing.

UPDATE: Other candidates' passport files have been similarly perused: Candidates' passport files breached - Yahoo! News.

Full post as published by The Canadian Privacy Law Blog on March 21, 2008 (boomark / email).